Journey Into O.C. Welfare System Is a Wrenching One : Social services: A mother's battle for benefits sheds light on a little-understood but fast-expanding program.

By CARLA RIVERA

June 16, 1991 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

ANAHEIM —

Linda Edwards woke up before dawn, fed and dressed 2-year-old Amanda and 6-month-old David, and struggled to fit them, a baby carriage and toys into a car jammed with most of her other worldly possessions.

She arrived at the welfare office by 6:30 a.m.

Already weary, she worried what the day would bring, because for her, this was just about the end of the road. Like the hundreds of others who would pass through the halls this day, the seams that held her life together had come undone.

She had recently separated from the father of her children. She had no income and was staying in a cramped motel room provided by a friend, and efforts to get help through churches and private agencies had yielded little.

So Edwards entered the line at the Anaheim welfare office and joined thousands of other Orange County residents in a system that is expanding faster than anywhere else in the state, according to county officials.

More people in the county are on welfare than ever before--176,227 by the last count, in April--and more people than ever are in jeopardy of becoming welfare-dependent. Yet the system is little understood.

For people like Edwards, who would walk away this day with more than $400 in emergency assistance, the system mostly works--although sometimes in fits and starts. But it is a wrenching process.

“You sit here, and they expect you to have a lot of patience, but you’re trying to keep the kids quiet and fill out forms that go into your personal life. . . . It’s not easy,” Edwards says, rocking the baby carriage in a gentle motion as David sleeps.

David is pink, plump and extremely placid. Never a problem, says Edwards.

Amanda is everything that David is not. Like a little tadpole, she darts here and there, is gathered up by Edwards, cries a little, fidgets a little, recharges with peanut-butter crackers and then starts out again. Edwards is endlessly patient with her.

“I’ve been through a lot in my life--not that I think I’m the only one--but considering, I think I’ve done pretty good with them,” she says.

She is only 23, a slight woman with short brown hair and bright brown eyes that laugh easily. But the cares of a difficult life have begun to shadow her face.

Edwards says she tried looking for a job before turning to welfare. Just before Amanda’s birth, she had worked assembling parts at an Anaheim aerospace firm.

But after looking at the jobs available and calculating what she could make, “I figured that all I’d be working for is baby-sitting money,” she says.

She has grown tired of asking friends for $20 here, $10 there to get her by. The cupboards at her little motel room are bare, and her children do not stop asking for food. She has four diapers for David and about the same number of pull-up panties for Amanda, who is still being potty-trained. Without money to do the laundry, she has had to dress the children in soiled clothes.

At about 9:45 a.m., Edwards is introduced to her caseworker, Cheryl Christensen, who begins by going over a pile of paperwork that Edwards has filled out to apply for Aid to Families With Dependent Children (AFDC), food stamps and health benefits under the state Medi-Cal program.

Young mothers like Edwards make up about a quarter of the county welfare caseload, about 20,188 cases representing 47,800 mothers and children.

Before receiving welfare, applicants must show proof of residency, citizenship, who they are living with, who they share their meals with and any disabilities or other reasons why they can’t work. They must make available information on checking and savings accounts and credit cards; receipts for cars, motorcycles and trailers; payroll check stubs, and housing and utility bills. The list is exhaustive, and all claims made by applicants are cross-checked using a sophisticated computer system.

This will be the third time in as many weeks that Edwards has applied for welfare. On the other occasions, her application was denied because she failed to report the presence of the children’s father in the home.

She admits that she delayed contacting her caseworker on one occasion when her former boyfriend returned briefly but says the other denial was a mistake.

“The father had come to visit the children and stayed for a while in the same motel, but he didn’t move in with us. The motel manager is willing to say that,” she tells Christensen.

It is a moot point now, but Edwards was angered by the episode. The previous caseworker had sent an investigator from the district attorney’s welfare fraud division to check on her story.

Such investigations are conducted in about 18% of all AFDC cases during the application process. One of the most frequent discrepancies is in reporting of the family’s status. Overall, about 59% of AFDC cases referred for investigation are subsequently denied aid.

Since a household containing a working spouse--even one with a low-paying job--will rarely qualify for aid, some applicants will report the father absent. Though technically considered fraud, the cases are rarely prosecuted if the truth is uncovered during the application process.

Edwards says the investigator ransacked drawers and closets looking for evidence of the father’s presence and complains that she felt she was being watched all the time.

She says she understands the need to prevent fraud but wants someone to try to understand her problems as well. Her life, relationships and difficulties at home are more complex than can be described on a few lines of an application form.

Edwards ran away from a troubled home at 13 and was placed for a while in the old Albert Sitton Home for abused children, now the Orangewood Children’s Home. She then lived in a succession of foster homes and, because she could not abide by the house rules, finally ended up in Juvenile Hall.

She is now on speaking terms with her mother, who lives in Anaheim, but she is not doing too well financially and cannot be depended on for much help, says Edwards.

Because her children are under 3, Edwards is exempt from the county’s mandatory work program. But she tells Christensen that she would like help in finding a job or entering a job training program anyway.

She must also sign a release agreeing to cooperate with district attorney’s investigators in obtaining child support from the children’s father. She explains that she had asked her former boyfriend to bring diapers and food when he could but did not want to ask for support because he is living from paycheck to paycheck himself.

However, she will have to cooperate with the investigators as a condition of eligibility unless there is a compelling reason not to, such as if the inquiry would put her in jeopardy because of an abusive ex-mate.

During the interview with the caseworker, toys and more crackers amuse Amanda, who has taken to running up and down the hall and trying to knock down the partitions that divide the interview areas.

A supervisor is able to round up a T-shirt and shorts for Amanda and a little shirt for David, who has gotten soaked during a diaper change.

At about 10:30 a.m., the interview is over. Edwards’ application will be processed and reviewed again, and it will be days before she knows whether it has been accepted.

But she will not go home empty-handed. Her circumstances make her eligible for emergency assistance. Just before noon, her name is called and she is handed a check for $200 and vouchers for $251 worth of food stamps.

“I feel relieved, a little better,” she says. “If I hadn’t gotten anything, I don’t know what I would have done. Hopefully, this time (the investigators) will get everything straight.”

Edwards arrives back at her motel room exhausted. It is a small space dominated by an unkempt double bed and scattered toys, the most prominent of which is a large, red-and-orange plastic slide. She and the children have been sharing the room with a male friend who has tried to help out since Edwards split with her former boyfriend.

Edwards says she will probably stay at the motel for the time being because she has nowhere else to go. Her room is on the third floor, and there are no play areas for the children. She admits it is not the best environment for them.

She is on a waiting list for low-income housing provided by the city of Anaheim but doesn’t expect anything to come through soon.

In the meantime, she concentrates on getting by day to day.

“I can’t see that far ahead,” she says. “Right now things are shaky and will be until I get settled. But I know I’ll make it. I never give up on anything. It’ll just take time.”

Orange County’s Welfare Caseload

How many people*

AFDC***: 68,571

Food Stamps: 21,788

General Relief: 3,854

Medi-Cal: 52,908

How much money**: AFDC: $198.23 million

Food Stamps: $31.03 million

General Relief: $10.96 million

Medi-Cal: $400-500 million

The typical AFDC client, a single mother with 2 children...

Receives $694 monthly in cash assistance.